30+ Ways to Improve Product Photography for Your Online Shop

Product photography can seem like a daunting prospect and it’s certainly not something that everyone gets right. A good product image can do many things, but most importantly it needs to draw attention to a listing, appeal to the (potential) buyer, and represent your product and business in a positive manner. Like the rest of your website or online store, your product photographs should look 100% professional.

Many people prefer to pay someone to take their pictures for them but if, for whatever reason, you choose to take yours yourself, here 30+ tips you’ll need to consider to improve product photography for your online shop.

The Hardware

1. Shoot products with your phone

If you choose to use your phone, ensure you’re making the most of all of its great features. Make use of the grid; it’s great for dividing up your shot and keeping your lines level. The iPhone has ‘burst mode’, which allows you to hold down the shutter to get several pictures - up to ten per second, depending on your phone model. And take advantage of HDR (High Dynamic Range), which mixes different levels of exposure to create one detailed shot.

There are some great apps out there designed to make the process easier. Try Camera+ for iPhone or Camera Zoom FX for Android, both of which are affordably priced. If you’re a jewellery seller, Modahaus has a great tutorial for shooting jewellery with an iPhone.

Shooting product photos with your iPhone.

You you are planning on taking picture with your smartphone, check how to capture photos with a smartphone.

2. Use a tripod

It might be tempting to try to cut costs by going freehand but a tripod can save you time and hassle, as well as improving the quality of your shots. You don’t need to spend a fortune and it’s a worthy investment. When you’re taking a professional picture, even the tiniest of movements can ruin your shot, and using a tripod can avoid this. It can also help you to take pictures from awkward angles.

Tripods with positioning heads are best for product photography. Manfrotto tripods, such as the Manfrotto 055XPROB, come with some good reviews, and their prices aren’t too steep either. For iPhone photographers, Amazon offers a selection of iPhone tripod mounts, which can be placed on a normal tripod.

Tripod for product photography.

3. Try a mini studio or a lightbox

We don’t all have a fantastically well-lit photographer’s studio to work in, so most of us just have to create our perfect conditions ourselves. A simple way to do this is by using a ready-made mini studio. These usually comprise of a background, walls, stand and lamps, and many are foldable for easy storage. The Square Perfect have received great reviews and there are many more on the market.

Lightbox for product photography.

And if you’re into DIY, you can always make a lightbox yourself or buy a light cube on Amazon, with prices starting at $20.

DIY lightbox.

4. Get a DSLR camera

If you’re in a position to buy a new camera, then do. There are plenty of affordable, quality DSLR cameras out there that will do a great job and World of Reviews have reviewed this year’s best, as of April 2015. For the very best quality and performance, a camera is best - that’s why photographers use them. Whatever you choose, make sure that you use your equipment to its full potential by learning about all of its features and making the most of them.

DSLR camera review, April 2015.

Camera Settings

5. Make use of macro mode

If your camera has a macro mode, use it. The button usually has a tiny flower on it so it should be easy to locate. Macro mode is great for close-ups, allowing detailed focus from short distances. It will make it harder to focus in the first place, and will reduce your depth of field, but the detail can be incredible.

Normal (left) vs. macro mode (right).

6. Use the timer and anti-shake option

This is going one step further than the tripod in keeping your camera still. Even the click of a button can jog the camera just enough that your shot is no longer perfect. Set the timer, make any necessary adjustments, and your shot is ready. Some phone apps, such as CameraSharp, have an anti-shake mode, which you can use if you don’t have a tripod, and can give better results in poor lighting.

The Scene

7. Choose your background carefully

Most items look their best against a white background, as it eliminates distractions and makes colours ‘pop’. You can buy specialist backdrops, tents or ‘sweeps’, which are specially curved to eliminate shadows caused by sharp angles. This will give a clean look.

A simple white background is good.

Many products are shown in their ‘natural environment’, such as a sofas (the product) in the living room. This is a great way of demonstrating size, and can give a customer great visualisation of how the product might look in their home, but beware of distractions. The last thing you want to do is deflect from the product itself.

The scene can highlight the products.

Background can even make something to look more expensive. Depending on your target audience and your product, the experience can differ a lot.

Which wine looks more expensive?

8. Draw attention to products

Your product needs to be the main or only focus of the image. If you’re using a stand, make sure it’s not too fussy. When photographing with other products, ensure the relevant one stands out.

Keep the image simple by keeping ‘background noise’ to a minimum – too many other items or too many colours can be confusing and take the emphasis away from the product you’re trying to sell.

Do you know what the product is which is being advertised below? It's Lavazza coffee (she holds the cup in her left hand). The image is impressive, but can be confusing.

Attention is not on the coffee (cup) but on the picture.

Eye-tracking studies reveal that when a person in the image looks at the product, a person looking at the image tends to look at the product too.

We tend to look where some one else is looking at.

9. Don’t be lazy with your lighting

This can be one of the trickiest parts of photography to get right, but it’s also one of the most important – it can really make or break your image quality. What kind of lighting you need depends on what kind of shot you want to take. Some ‘natural environment’ shots will work really well with natural daylight. For most white background shots, you’ll need specialist lighting; take a look online as there are some pretty affordable kits around. You may need to adjust the lighting to avoid sharp shadows, which can look harsh and distract from the product image.

Light can be softend with lighboxes.

Product Positioning

10. Experiment with angles

Different shapes and colours can take different angles. Depending on the nature of the product, an unusual angle can be fun and eye-catching. Of course, don’t go crazy – you want to show off your product, not your artistic flair, after all. The image should be interesting but functional. Take photos that capture the product from different angles, showing off its different aspects. For example, if you’re buying a pair of shoes, you want to see them from the side, as well as the front, don’t you? And you want to see the pattern on the front, close-up, right? Your buyers are no different.

Show each side of the product.

11. Support your products

If you’re selling items that won’t stand up on their own, using some kind of stand or support can really improve your photos. Hang earrings on a jewellery hook or place a soft toy against a stack of children’s books or a stand that can be hidden behind it. It will look much more professional and interesting than just lying flat on a white background. Don't forget to mention that some items are not included.

The gray stone helps the product to stand out.

The pool and wooden floor have a nice feel around the sofa.

12. Show all varieties available

If your product is available in different colours or variations, take photographs of all of them. Customers like to see exactly what they’re getting, so show them.

Show all variations of the products.

13. Keep things in perspective

If you sell items in bundles, and are combining two or more images of individual items to form one photograph, make sure they’re all in proportion with each other. Getting this wrong can look silly at best, and at worst, be totally misleading.

If any of your products is of an unexpected size, use a ruler or a dollar bill in the picture to give the customer an idea of the size.

Make sure all items are in perspective and of expected size.

14. Be accurate with what you show

Whether accidental or deliberate, misleading photographs can be a big mistake. Making an item seem bigger or in better condition than it actually is can often lead to customer complaints. So while you want to put your product’s best foot forward, it’s important to ensure that the image you choose is really representative of its subject.

When the package contains several items, show what is included in one image. This way the customer gets the full value in one glance.

Show everything what's included.

If you sell a knive set, let the customer know when the storage block is included or not, for example. You can put the included items in the image too.

What is beoing sold here?

15. Use more than one image

If your online shop allows it, offer your customers more than one viewpoint of your products. Use the most striking image, which shows the product as a whole, as the main image. Then add one or more additional images, perhaps with a more natural background or a detailed close-up. For example show how the product is used. After all, the aim is to give your customers as much information as possible.

Show different images of the product.

16. Show the details

Add an interactive feel to your photos by using a zoom function. Customers can use this to get to know the product better by examining its material as well as smaller elements, such as logos and zips. If that’s just not possible, you can at least add a close-up image of key features to the original image.

Detailed view of the wheels.

17. Choose your models carefully

If you decide to use a model to display your product, whether it’s clothing or not, make sure you choose wisely. Your model needs to suit your brand and your product - he or she needs to ‘look right’ using it, and reflect the image you want your business to portray.

An example might be a fashion clothing company aimed at men and boys between the ages of 16 and 25. The company’s models should look between 16 and 25 years old. A 45 year old model would be inappropriate for the brand and would cause some serious confusion as regards to the target market, inevitably leading to loss of sales.

AdonisClothing tested picture with male models with different levels of facial hair and found that bearded man sell close to 50% better.

Bearded models tend to sell up to 50% better.

18. Be a people person

People respond to people. So use people in your product shots. Whether the person is using the product or is in the background, their very presence can increase click rates and conversion rates. And in some cases it shows how the product is used.

Show how your product can be used by a person.

When you sell a watering can, you can how someone using it.

19. Get emotional

As humans, we’re governed by our emotions. The decisions we make are guided by how we feel at the time. If you can use photography to evoke certain feelings in your customers, you might just get a sale.

You can use colour, environment, and people to do this. For instance, if you’re product is a foot spa, you might want to use calming colours in your photography, perhaps a spa-like environment, and a very relaxed looking person.

Combining the end result with the product might be attractive too. Ketchup looks more tasty with the burger near it.

Don't you need the ketchup now when you see the burger?

20. Show the physical product

Most products are 3D, touchable, usable items. So prove it! Link to videos of the product in use, or make your own and put it on YouTube. Short of holding an item yourself, nothing gives a better idea of look and feel than a demonstration.

Remember the Home Shopping Network? A short two to five minute video showing the product highlights or how the product is used in a real-life scenario could persuade your customer to convert.

Good old shopping network videos, explain the product.

Another option is to make 360 degree images of your products. A turntable is available on Amazon for under $50 and will give a great view of the products. And with the right software, like Shutter Stream, will be a great help to stitch all the images to a movie.

Turntable which allows you to take 360 degree images.

Software which automates 360 degree image taking.

21. Be consistent with all images

When you provide more than one image per product, it’s really important to make sure that they’re properly aligned with each other. One or more image standing out as too high or too low not only looks messy and unprofessional, but also detracts from the product itself.

Editing

22. Colour it pretty

Black and white images can be beautiful and artistic, and they certainly have their place. But that place is rarely in product photography. For a start, a black and white image is unlikely to stand out on a page. And even if it does, at least enough for someone to click on it, it won’t show off the product in all its glory and detail as well as a colour shot. Keep your black and white snaps for your family snaps, and take your product images in colour.

In any case colour correction is a great way to improve the attractiveness of an image. GreyScaleGorilla has a nice tutorial on colour correction in Photoshop. Most photo apps on the phone have a colour correction option too.

Colors makes fruit look more fresh.

Without color correction, white might not look white.

23. Don’t crop the product

Unless you’re taking a focussed close-up, show the whole product in your image. Cutting off small parts of the product will usually look like an accident, which doesn’t make for a very professional image.

Either deliberately photograph a particular part of an item (e.g. a logo, an engraving or an embellishment) close-up or photograph the whole thing. Missing part of the necklace just makes the product not complete. The best option is to include several photos of the product, including close-ups and the whole.

Show the whole product when possible and add more picture to accentuate certain parts.

More tips to remember

24. Don’t delete from camera

It’s likely, and advisable, that you’ll take more than one photo of a product before you’re happy. But your photograph could look quite different once it’s on your computer screen, and you might find that the first one was the best after all. It’s wise to keep everything you take, right up to the point of editing.

25. Keep pictures and your store in style

If your business or website has a certain style to it, make sure your photography reflects this. For example, a rustic, cluttered background to a minimalist chair, being sold on a clean, modern website makes no sense and will just confuse customers.

Ikea is a great example of this, with it’s photography being bright, simple and modern, just like its website and products.

26. Have a little patience

Although often enjoyable, and immensely rewarding, product photography can be a frustrating process, especially for those without much experience. Keep at it. It’ll be worth it when that perfect shot gets you a big sale.

27. Editing can be a bliss

Editing photographs is one of the beauties of the digital age. Cropping, retouching and editing out blemishes is all part of the job now and can add immense value to your photography. Photoshop can do amazing things and is also available as a free app on Apple and Android.

28. Editing shouldn't not be the answer

Editing can never replace good photography. If you’re not 100% happy with your angle, lighting or anything else, keep snapping and treat any later editing as a bonus. No amount of touching up can make up for poor photography. Equally, don’t use retouching as a substitute for a good quality product; customers will figure it out pretty quickly when they receive it!

29. Optimize for the web

Product images need to be large, and a minimum of 1600 pixels. This will ensure that your customers get a detailed view and that you can add a zoom function if you wish.

All cameras and phones take pictures in high enough resolution, so this shouldn't be a problem. But when an image is has a low resolution it will be zoomed in on the web, it will not look sharp and will be less attractive.

30. Keep your products clean

Use a microfiber cloth to wipe off any dust, fingerprints or marks from your products. Look carefully – they may be hard to spot now, but on screen they’ll be glaringly obvious. Amazon provide a wide selection.

31. Google Shopping policies

Some shopping platforms, like Google Shopping, do not allow watermarked images. Google Shopping doesn’t allow product listings with the following images, so make sure you have a clean image which can be used in product feeds for these platforms. See Google Shopping policies for more details.

• Placeholder or incorrect product images.
• Generic images, graphics, or illustrations that are not the actual product images, except for products in the 'Hardware' or 'Vehicles and parts' categories.
• Images containing promotional elements (e.g. calls to action such as “buy”; service-related information such as extended warranty; free shipping; price information; promotional adjectives such as “best, cheap”; condition or compatibility such as new, 2-piece, adaptable) or names and/or logos of merchants regardless if the above mentioned elements overlay the product. This also applies to watermarks with promotional elements or names and/or logos of merchants.
• Images containing obstructing content (e.g. watermarks, brand names and/or logos) that overlay the product being sold.
• Images that include borders.
• Images of a bundle that do not show the entire bundle.
• Images of multipack that do not display a single unit of the product.

To conclude; we wish you luck with taking great product photo's for your e-commerce business.